Missing
by Chya
Summary: No summary. Shalimar & Jesse angst.


Warnings: None. Unbeta'd.  
  
Notes: The song abused here is 'Missing' written by Vangelis.  
  
  
  
  
  
*****  
  
  
  
  
  
Missing  
  
By Chya  
  
  
  
You're missing, you're gone, and there's just an empty space where you were both in our home and in my soul.  
  
I've been ill a long time, and only recently awoke to find you weren't there. I'd expected you to be there, encouraging, supporting, and yelling at me when I wanted to give up. But you weren't. They told me to wait until I was better. Well, I'm better now, and they still won't tell me anything.  
  
Jenny's the only one who'll talk to me, the only one who talks about you like you still exist. She thinks you left her for another, after an evening full of romance, passion and promises, in the morning she woke to a cold and empty bed.  
  
I've no doubt you're missing, no matter how much they deny you. No matter how hard Emma works to push subtle thoughts into my head that you're dead, that you're no longer a part of our lives, I won't give up on you.  
  
Conspiracies of silence hide you, keep me out. Brennan looks at me with huge brown eyes full of pity, sorrow and concern. He wants to say something, I can tell, but a glance at Adam or Emma, a quick shake of a head, and he turns away, leaving me alone in my confusion and concern.  
  
They nearly had me believing that you didn't exist. Your room is bare, your ring is gone and not even the deepest recesses of the computer knows who you are.  
  
The past is so vague to me right now, your presence like a ghost, an invisible friend I might have had to keep me company along the way. But I know you can't have really left me, because in the darkest hours you call out to me, faint and terrified, begging me not to leave you.  
  
There are almost no clues, and the one lead I have, suggests you left of your own free will. If that's true, then you can have no idea and how much you're missed. I want you back, so that you'll know, because I can't believe that you'd just up and leave without telling me.  
  
I miss your gentle smile, the way you hold me when I'm down, the way you stand firm and calm me when I'm angry. Your bright laughter and laid-back optimism. I miss the time we used to share, and it's that big hole that tells me you're not a figment of my imagination, not a product of fever dreams. You're missing, and I'm going to find you.  
  
Jenny still has no news, is no longer interested in finding you. She's convinced you have someone else now. Heard you were spotted walking hand in hand down Sunset Boulevard with someone new.  
  
And my heart and hope die a little more.  
  
You're missing,. I won't stop believing that, no matter what they try and tell me.  
  
Adam is the one that breaks in the end. Tells me that even if by chance I found you, I'd still lose. Because you're no longer interested in us, no longer want any part of us. You've found a new cause worth fighting for. You've always followed your heart, even when it turned around and bit you on the ass, even when it meant you had to sacrifice all that you hold dear. So that I believe.  
  
And I'm so alone in the world now, everyone else being transient, you were my one consistency. The one person who never gave up on me, never turned their back on me.  
  
And now, finally, you have.  
  
And I'm right back where I started.  
  
Alone.  
  
  
  
Again.  
  
  
  
  
  
Again, they nearly had me believing that you were best forgotten, that you'd really left me. But they'll never understand how much I miss you. Brennan doesn't understand the bond between us, and I see the guilt that overlays the jealousy in his eyes at my refusal to believe anything other than you're missing.  
  
  
  
  
  
Adam understands but cannot know how deep our bonds goes. While Emma feels the depths and understands it, but cannot understand how entwined in my life you've always been.  
  
  
  
  
  
They cannot make me believe what they want me to, and it break my heart every time I hear your anguished cried in my darkest dreams.  
  
  
  
  
  
Finally, I realize the one question I've not asked. Why do they want me to believe that you're gone?  
  
I liked Jenny. She was good for you, and I thought you'd loved her. But she's weak. Her love for you a sham. I hurt her, Jess, and I really hope you can forgive me for that, but she hurt you first.  
  
They took you away, and I tried to follow, but they wouldn't let me. You're missing, and they won't let me come and get you. Brennan holds me tight while they tell me. He sits behind me, arms wrapped around pinning my arms to my side, always my gentle guardian. Reminiscent of the times you've held me like that.  
  
Reminiscent of the last time you held me like that, which echoes painfully the words they tell me.  
  
You jumped from the roof with me in your arms like this.  
  
You dropped me, phased to slow your own decent and laughed as I crashed and burned.  
  
My struggles turn to shakes as memories come crashing back, but still in the dark at the back of my mind I can hear you screaming out in terror.  
  
This time I believe them, and know it for the truth.  
  
Yet I can't reconcile that with everything I know about you.  
  
I let Jenny off easy. If I'd known the extent of her betrayal, she'd be an unrecognizable corpse by now.  
  
They try and console me, persuade me that it's best to forget you, but I just can't do that, and I don't know how they can. But then again, they've had weeks longer to come to terms with it. Brennan whispers in my ear his sorrow that they couldn't find you. Emma finally cries her unshed tears as she explains how you vanished suddenly and completely from her empathic radar after the fight.  
  
And Adam, brokenly explaining how they'd done everything they could and failed, his grief surfacing for a moment before coming back under his rigid control.  
  
All three of them taking turns to try and explain how they'd tried to protect me, using my own shattered mind to make me forget. How can I hold that against them? Even while I still hear you screaming.  
  
I have to stop your voice, and the only way I know how is to find you.  
  
You're missing, and I have to change that.  
  
They didn't try hard enough, didn't have my special senses to help them. Weren't determined enough.  
  
Section nine is as secure as ever and as I creep inside, I suddenly realize that I'm not alone. A bolt of electrical energy takes out someone trying to creep up on me, Emma projecting warm reassurance, and Adam's voice through my ring giving me a pod number.  
  
And still you're screaming.  
  
Minutes take forever as the pod deactivates, even longer when I realize that your voice has left me in silence. But eventually the glass coffin opens and my eyes fall on your cold, lifeless face and I go numb. The only relief that, although you're still gone, you're no longer missing.  
  
Emma's arms around me this time, as the world fades to black.  
  
Slicing through the darkness I can hear Adam issuing sharp orders as Emma whispers hope. Then faintly, so faintly I think I'm dreaming I can hear you calling, begging me to reach out, to forgive you and give you the lifeline you need.  
  
It's hard Jesse, because you did the one thing I've always said I could never forgive, you left me.  
  
But, you also know that with you, and only with you, there isn't anything I can't forgive.  
  
FINIS 


End file.
